Tutorial: How To Buy From AlphaBay Market?

With the news that Agora will be gone (Already gone now…) a large portion of its users have transitioned to AlphaBay. You must be here to learn how to buy stuff from AlphaBay, then. Ensure that you read this whole tutorial before starting – it is important you understand every step. This guide is a lesson in buying, not vending; vending is wholly another task which requires bigger consideration.

USE A VPN SERVICE. You can find one here to best suit you, we review the best VPN Services for privacy on the market. Every time you use your computer your IP address is shown which reveals your actual physical address which means you can be traced very easily. A VPN must be used along with Tor (Tor is the free browser explained below) to make your online activity anonymous. When using a VPN Service it will hide your identity and location while also encrypting all of you internet traffic from everyone including your internet service provider.This technology will also protect you from identity theft and hacking when using free wifi because everything is encrypted. Any time you are searching for music, movies to download, pirated content, drugs or anything illegal then you should be using a VPN to fly under the radar. The law is trying to monitor everything we do now so don’t make it easy for them, don’t end up like the original mastermind of Silk Road and get busted. This is a must have in your anonymous arsenal.

The first step in buying from any marketplace, is to set up your environment. What follows is bare minimum to staying safe when buying personal goods. Afterwards, look at the Security Tutorials section for some extra security tips.

PGP is a secure method of encrypting and decrypting messages. It is not a very good idea to send your address to a vendor, unencrypted because if the hidden service gets seized, LE will then have hard evidence of the crime you’ve committed. One thought to keep in mind is that not all versions of GPG are created equally, so avoid using online GPG methods such as iGolder and those utilizing BouncyCastle libraries.

This site has basic guides covering GPG for each main OS. Linux, OS X, and Windows. Linux is the better choice, obviously; however, you will be fine ordering personal goods on both OS X and Windows.

Bitcoin

One cannot buy items without having money first, now can we? You will need to buy some Bitcoin(s), which you can do with paypal or credit cards, find a local Bitcoin ATM machine, or even simply buy with fiat cash. Whichever way you choose to buy the Bitcoin(s) is completely up to you. However, LocalBitcoin is the most popular for one reason: it can be done anonymously. There have been reports of Coinbase banning accounts which have deposited into the darknet markets, so try to avoid that. Secondly, do not be connected to the Tor network when purchasing your Bitcoin(s), as it is completely legal and using Tor to buy it will often prove a hindrance.

Wallet

Now that you have some Bitcoin(s), you need a place to store them. One excellent choice is Electrum. It is open-source, cross-platform, and even has an Android version. You can go ahead and download it from here. Using it is pretty simple and straightforward.

Part 2 – Some beginning tips

Some beginning tips for new users should be compiled – they are from personal experience and others’ stories across the web:

Use your real name and real address; nothing draws more negative attention than getting your mail delivered to your real address with a fake name. Carriers of mail are usually familiar with who lives where, and report anything suspicious. You can even get a P.O. box in your local postal office for relatively little money, if you live with people who have the tendency to scavenge through your mail.

If you decide to use a fake name, have the proper documents to back yourself up. A fake ID and utility bill scans should be sufficient to open a P.O. box under that name.

Be patient. AlphaBay is not Amazon, things do sometimes take extra time; vendors are often known to mark items as shipped right away, even when they plan to actually ship the next day. The time it takes to ship can also be delayed due to weather or holiday seasons. The only time you should bring up not having received your package, is after 14 days, or if Auto-Finalize is just about to activate. There will be more coverage on that, later.

Encrypt all, every, and each message you send. This extra time is worth it to save yourself from not rotting away in prison.

Should you have negative experience with any vendor, private-message them before leaving a negative review. Almost all of the time, they effortfully go out of their way to sort out the situation depending on their return policy. Try to be kind and polite, as this will get you farther.

Don’t tell anyone that you are buying from the DNM. This includes your friends (even your best friend) or even your mother or father.

Tumbling, blending, or mixing your coins with an online service such as Bitcoin Fog or Grams’s Helix is a really good idea, but is ultimately up to personal preference. When buying personal amounts of goods, this is not really required; thus, it will not be covered in this tutorial.

If any listing appears too good to be true, it likely is.

Never ever FE (Finalize-Early). Trusted vendors are also known to sometimes exit-scam.

Make every effort you can, when possible, to buy your goods domestically (from within your own country).

Part 3 – What is AlphaBay?

AlphaBay is debatably the top marketplace on the darkweb, with anything ranging from drugs, weapons to counterfeits, electronics, etc.

It’s time to start filling out the required information. In the ‘Username’ field, choose something which you haven’t used elsewhere in the past, but which is easy to memorize. This same thing goes for the password and PIN which protect your account and attached wallet from attacks. XKCD has a great comic on creating secure, easy to remember passwords. Setting a custom Login-Phrase is purely optional, but it is a good practice to ensure you are not being phished at any given time. In the box where your GPG Public-key goes, input your ASCII-armored output, there. Do not publish anything which could be used to link you to your real name, in the Profile-Text box.

Once you have filled out all of the proper information, captcha included, and then clicked “Join the market,” keep your password and PIN in a safe place. Sign into the market, now.

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Part 5 – Setting up your account

Now that your account has been created, you will want to set it up completely. Click your username in the top-right corner.

Once we get to this page, all we really need to do is setup two-factor authentication with your GPG key. You will need to decrypt a message every time you login, using your private key, which prevents third parties from accessing your account without authorization. Go to the drop-down menu and choose to enable two-factor authentication, using your keypair to decrypt an encrypted message from the marketplace.

Part 6 – Choosing what to buy

Now that our account is finally setup, shopping can finally begin.

Searching

Searching is pretty straightforward on AlphaBay.

To make sure that only Escrowed listings appear in the results, skip down to the dropdown menu beneath “Payment type,” and choose “Escrow.” You can also choose to only show Multisig-protected listings, by going to the dropdown menu beneath “Multisig options,” and choosing “Show only multisig listings.”

FE vs No-FE

FE (finalize-early) is a procedure by which the vendor can retrieve the funds from a sale without going through escrow which is designed to ensure you receive your product. It is discouraged all over the darkweb community, due to inherent risks. Should you have been scammed by a vendor through a FE-enabled listing, no doubt it is that your funds are gone for good.

Buying from within your own country

Depending on how much risk you are willing to take, as well as the speed by which you are okay with it arriving, you can choose specific listings based upon their “Ship-From,” and “Ship-To” locations. Unfortunately, the search results themselves do not display these particularly significant details, and one must visit the listing page itself, to view from and to where it is shipped. Shipping from inside of your own country is safer as it does not require going through customs. Ordering from “hot” nations such as Pakistan, the Netherlands, and even Columbia are much riskier due to known trade practices in those places.

Judging the Vendor

By clicking on the vendor’s name in any listing or any search result, you are brought to their profile page, as exemplified above. Each vendor has his or her GPG public-key and XMPP listed, here. All of their feedback is also listed, both positive and negative. Beware though, just because a vendor might have positive reviews does not make for a purely reliable seller. In a case such as this, avoiding a purchase would be wise if you do not know the vendor that well, because of FE being enabled.

Another great way to get a general feel of a vendor’s reliability is to read reviews of them on the market forums, this site’s AlphaBay listing, the DNM Subreddit & Alphabay’s subreddit. You can also read their reviews on Grams.

Part 7 – Making your order

Once you’ve discovered a good listing from a reputable vendor, and are ready to make an order, let’s go ahead and start!

Adding funds to your wallet

At the very top of the website, you can see what your balance is, in your wallet, and the current BTC to USD conversion rate is diagonally below it. In order to buy anything, you must add funds to your market wallet. Click on your [empty] balance, as seen in the image, at the top of the website.

A new wallet address is generated after each deposit for obvious reasons. You do not need to generate it, yourself. Be sure to deposit a little more than you plan to spend initially, due to the fluctuation of the Bitcoin price. Once you have deposited your bitcoin(s), it takes a few confirmations on the blockcchain to show up in your balance. Be patient, and if it takes unusually too long, contact the staff on the forums. Keep in mind, you cannot contact the Admin him or herself, but you can always contact the subordinate staff members. You can also post a new thread outlining your delay/glitch.

Ordering

Now that you have finally deposited some funds, it is time to buy that item you’ve always wanted.

In the box labeled “Qty,” fill out the amount of the item you want to order. Once you click “Buy now,” you should enter your shipping address (encrypted). Ensure you have filled out everything correctly, and confirm your purchase.

Statuses Explained

To check on the status of your order, click “Orders,” on the navigation bar. All processing or “Current” orders should show up, here. Processing means that your order is being processed currently, by the vendor handling it, but are not yet finalized

Once it is marked as shipped and escrow is finalized, it goes to “Archived Orders”.

If your order is not delivered in the appropriate time as mentioned in the listing, circumstances considered, you may dispute the order while it is still inside of Escrow.

If you need marketplace support at any time, contact the staff through the forums. This is the primary way of getting assistance. If, however, a dispute is opened, a moderator will contact you through the marketplace without any need to select and private-message one of them. Please do note, though, that a moderator or otherwise-employed staff member will never request your account details.

Receiving

If you get something in the postal mail which you do not recognize, don’t just throw it out. Many vendors simply have incredible stealth, and people, thinking their orders to be spam, have been known to throw these packages away. After the package is delivered successfully, confirm that you have received your order in AlphaBay’s marketplace page named “Orders,” as outlined earlier, inside of the order details. Once you do this, the funds will be released from escrow into the vendor’s on-market wallet. Otherwise, you might need to wait for Auto-finalize to occur.

If you don’t receive what you’ve ordered, just message the vendor. They will normally be helpful, if you remain coolly calm. If the issue remains unfixed by the vendor, you should open a dispute. Opening a dispute will alert moderators, one of whom will be assigned to this dispute number. Remain calm, and explain your side, then wait for the vendor to explain his or her side. Bickering can often make sure you lose your dispute case.

If the purchase of your product was worthwhile, be sure to leave a positive review for the vendor, to ensure that other potential buyers know with whom to do business. The biggest component of the darkweb is a trust system.

Part 8 – Digital Items

On AlphaBay, you can also buy digital products. The same filtering methods apply during your search for adequate listings, except you choose “Digital,” instead of “Physical.” Once you make your purchase of a digital item, you do not need to input your shipping address or anything. However, still ensure that, should any details be relevant and vital to the purchase for the vendor (depends on the item), you encrypt those details. The delivery of your digital goods will be received in the order’s details page (accessible through the orders page, at “Orders,” on the navigation bar). Vendors often use a system called Auto-fulfill, which ensures that your digital good is delivered through the order details, automatically. If something is amiss, check with the vendor. If all does not actually work out, feel free to dispute the order, and a moderator will be with you through the marketplace, in time, just as with ordering physical items.

Part 9 – Conclusion

So as long as you follow the guidelines in this tutorial, you should be ordering quite adequately, on AlphaBay to start off. There is, of course, a bit more to learn, but it’s much more worthwhile to learn how to do the rest on your own. Stay safe and enjoy shopping!

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52 comments

Alphabay is the next exit scam mark my words, who is alpha02? good friend with verto aka evolution owner also tcf owner. What forums is alpha02 on? verf $50 invite wow must be a really private guy, monopoly aka next big ripper board hosted in first ranking eu country what a joke. This guy has made no name for himself who is he nobody on ru boards even know this guy, but all a sudden when evo exit scams he comes out of the woodwork with his brand new dark market this guy is a nobody who is ready to take your btc.

Almost all markets exit-scam in the end; it’s inevitable. The same can be said for 99.9% of other Darkweb markets.

Admin account is a collectively controlled account by all of the staffers, not Alpha02 anymore. While Alpha02 can and probably does very well have a behind-the-scenes hegemony, it doesn’t mean he’s a one-man operation. In order to exit-scam, it’d involve getting ALL staffers to participate, because even while Alpha02 might or might not have access, so do the other staffers. Think of it as comparable to a multisig wallet, but with accounts.

DeSnake is one of the major players; neither he nor Alpha02 are known for having been involved in the Evo exit scam. Furthermore, while AB is the #1 marketplace right now, it’s doubtful that they will SPECIFICALLYexit-scam in any time close to now. Even Evo waited a while after becoming the #1 market before exit-scamming.

Monopoly has absolutely nothing to do with this; that’s a wholly separately-owned board, unrelated to TCF, Evo, and even AB.

Where are you getting that it was hosted in the EU? People on Russian boards know who he is – his market is advertised on several places such as Monopoly (don’t try to make a friggin argument, PLEASE) and even Korovka by DeSnake.

They suck, you’ll have less of a chance getting robbed by a street dealer than from this terrible site and it’s vendors that are mostly crooks.

Don’t believe me, spend spend some time on their forum and look at hundreds of people that are begging for their coin back. The site owner gave the scam artists several back doors and never does anything about it, just keeps profiting from the scams.

All markets have their scams. Agora and Nucleus were particularly bad. The fact they WEREN’T set up by carders doesn’t make them any better. However, unlike those other 2, at least AB has a dedicated, proactive anti-scam team.

Just because you note that its forums show evidence of scams doesn’t factually support the notion that all other markets didn’t have just as many, if not even more scams. All it notes is the number of scams on one forum, with no comparative analysis. Your argument is anecdotal, superficial, and statistically invalid. I suggest taking a math course, for starters.

‘Use your real name and real address; nothing draws more negative attention than getting your mail delivered to your real address with a fake name. Carriers of mail are usually familiar with who lives where, and report anything suspicious’

‘Encrypt all, every, and each message you send. This extra time is worth it to save yourself from not rotting away in prison’

It’s very sensible that deepdotweb are on the side of security as governments and police forces around the world act very differently to various laws. The USA police for example seem to actively pursue users more than the UK etc.

As they recommend…be very careful depending on which country you are in.

That bit out of the way….I live in a particularly liberal city in England and half of the postmen are using drugs themselves….

I’ve had drugs for my personal use sent to this address from all over the world to many different names for the last 5 years or so.

I’m a hardcore liberal and am prepared to go to jail for my beliefs on drug liberalization so am not your average Joe with 5 kids to support.

It is a fundamental civil liberty for me to decide what to put in my body and I’ve spent enough years living in fear.

David Cameron and the British police can suck my fucking balls!

I will take what drug I wish to take when I wish to take it and I am no longer afraid so come get me bitches!!!

Wise words from a small group of ppl who choose not to dicted to why where when and how. I never agreed or signed funk all at birth as I was not able to spk or use a pen! Nice to hear similar strong minded ppl…
I am no slave to no man! and I’m not a sheeple and i am not a good little scared citizen who is so scared of life to actually even live it. Weak weak cattle that get in line and obey like a dog or slave! I make my own decisions becuase I am a man not a mouse.
Knowledge is power if your too afraid or too lazy or busy slaving away and and given up to the manipulative elite then you are a scared sheeple. Baaaaaa. We are living and men. The others are brain dead donkeys with a elephant strapped to them. I make my own laws I don’t need or accept their rules. I decide with my morality and its my life not theirs. Too many hypnotized products from a broken society.
So yes I agree fuck the law… Do not be dictated and think for yourself. OPEN YOUR EYES FFS

By the way….just got to say….maximum respect to you guys at deepdotweb…….it must be a legal minefield running a site like this and I’m sure you’re in it for more than just the money.
In a world full of scammers fake urls etc you guys are priceless.
Keep up the good work :-)

I think it shows deepdotweb are relatively impartial….they’re main news item is how to use AlphaBay yet they allow negative comments on it.

If you are a newbie, be aware that each market competes with each other and some are continually trying to make the others look bad.
I have used AlphaBay numerous times and never had a problem.

There seems to be a pattern that the ‘negative spammers’ seem to repeatedly use…’they stole my bitcoins’ line.

It’s very straight forward….find out for yourself, register, send only a small amount of money for small purchases and continue as such until you have trust.

There are many many negative comments about markets, from my experience..Agora, AlphaBay, nucleus and even Evolution were all absolutely fine (until they fucked off with £20 million)……….and the predictable…..’they stole my bitcoins’ comment will undoubtedly follow this comment….to those leaving the negative comments a little message……DO YOU THINK WE ARE IDIOTS? WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!

“anti scam” team helped ban 200+ vendor scammers. thanks to “anti scam” team i received refund from vendor NTTS when tried to exit scam but “anti scam” team catch in the act!! from the frozen funds i received what i lost from the order with the vendor! say what you want alphabay is the right place to be on darknets!!!

Well, to all who call Alphabay a top market. Please give a good explanation, why there is Auto-Finalization in less than three days? Even most domestic orders will fail do be delivered within three days. So, top market? Are you sure?

i opened an account on alpha bay and i placed about 5 orders of about $230 and 2 days later it said my username or password was wrong anybody kno how to fix this i still have about $100 of btc left on my account so any help would be apreciated thanks

I am new to the Darknet and AlphaBay, so probably somebody can help me with my first order?

I got Tails and Thunderbird/Enigmail configured. My problem is, how to encrypt my shipping address the correct way, so nobody else than the vendor has access to it…

As far as I understood, I hack my shipping details in a text-editor, copy it to RAM and then…? I sing/encrypt the text with PUBLIC key, right? But which public key do I have to use, my public key or the vendors public key? Do I have to send my public key to the vendor separately?

Another thing, when I want to order two different items for a single vendor, do I have to order them separately or is there a kind of shopping cart?

Basically, every person has 2 keys. One public key, and one private key. On creation of a PGP key, you have to give your name and email address (use real name and working email, important). Then you also have set a passphrase.

Now, to encrypting/decrypting. If Person A wants to send an encrypted message to Person B, they encrypt that message with B’s public key. Now, if B wants to read that message, they have to decrypt it with THEIR private key, and the passphrase that they set on key generation.

By posting their public keys in their AlphaBay profiles, can’t those profiles be tied to the real names and email addresses associated with those public keys? Would it make sense for users to create a second public key associated with an anonymous email address?

Sooner or later you’re gonna be screwed if you don’t use a VPN software.
Unfortunately these softwares are either expensive or they’re for free but keep the logs.
PURE VPN doesn’t keep logs and is pretty easy to use. Just buy a premium Account on AlphaBay. My favourite vendor for things like that is “CornShakes”. He delivers within an hour and his Accounts work perfectly!
Just give it a try, you won’t regret it!

In my country its strictly forbidden to buy drugs. i don’t know where my order would arrive. in post office? or is it better to use some kind of agency for it? agencies here demand information about online shopping websites. and i want to know if it’s possible to enter dollars on alphabay account an then convert them to bitcoins? what do you recommend? please respond

You go to your oders and click on the order you want to dispute and look for the little red button that says ” dispute order” and then a moderater will contact you and have a 3 way convo with you and the vendor. You both explain your sides and the moderater helps settle shit down ..atleast that’s what i’ve heard . i dont actually browse the dark net. haha that would be insane!!!!!

I did everything, followed up uour tutorial, i secured von, got tor, made an account etc. i am getting ready now to make my first purchase but one thing is still not clear enough and thus regarding encryption, gpg key… how do i make this key, what does it have to look like, how do i encrypt messages and how in earth will the vendor know what my key is in order to decrypt my messages. Please help. Thanks

Hey this may seem like a silly question but when you attempt to purchase an ebook item, what kind of an email address should you provide in the notes section of the purchase? Can it be a gmail account or some type of email service for the DN? Any helpful replies appreciated.

My team and I have been using AlphaBay as a vending platform for a long time now and it is one of the best in the industry. If you’re looking for good weed make sure to check us out “BestOfCan”, we have free 1g review samples available.

Unless you’ve completely jail-broken your phone, you don’t have full access all of your phone’s services (meaning that there are plenty of loopholes for hackers to exploit). There is software for Android (Orfox), however I have yet to compare its stats to Tor Browser.

I would highly recommend limiting your Tor usage to a secure laptop with a VPN and PGP encryption on all your messages. Leave your phone out of it.

What happens when you encrypt your address for an order and then also tick the box ‘encrypt with seller gpg’. Does it have to be decrypted twice, causing potential confusion, or will it default to either my already encrypted message or the sellers gpg encryption?

Jason & Dezq2 – You dont encrypt your delivery address with any of your keys, you are sending a message to the seller so you encrypt your delivery address with his public key (only the seller can access your delivery address, seller decrypts with seller’s private key).

For secure messaging, you never encrypt anything with any of your own keys.
The only key you should ever use to encrypt something is with the public key of the person you are messaging.

Your Keys:
You dont use your own public key, you give it out freely to anyone that may need to message you securely.
Your guard your private key (as if it was one of your balls or your soul :) and only ever use it alone in private, to decrypt any encrypted messages you have received.